Reviews with content warning for Trafficking - Demon Copperhead

Damon Fields, aka Demon Copperhead, is born in Southern Virginia in the late 1980s to a teen mom with substance issues. Demon’s mom is in and out of rehab, and he is partly raised by the Peggots.
Demon’s mom ends up marrying an abusive man.
Demon is shuffled off to a foster home run by Mr. Creakle & then a few more. He finally ends up with football coach, and the book weaves his story with opiod addiction.

MY THOUGHTS

Prior to reading this one, I saw some articles online about it that said it is a retelling of Dicken’s novel entitled David Copperfield.
After seeing rave reviews & that the author won the Pulitzer Prize for this book, I waited on library wait list for quite a while. I am in the minority here, but this book & writing style was not for me.
Although the opiod crisis is a serious topic, I can’t recommend this book. This book DRAGS. It is so unnecessarily slow. It took me 7 days to finish. I typically finish any book, even books I don’t like, in max 4 days. It was getting to feel like homework getting through it. There’s a ton of parts that didn’t need to be included.
The writing style was nauseating to me. I hated it. It is Demon describing & relaying things, and his voice wasn’t strong enough for that job. It’s like a child relaying things to you for 500+ pages. I also didn’t buy Kingsolver’s ability to write in the shoes of this character. It didn’t sound realistic at all.
The characters are all flat & many are stereotypical cliches. To name a few, think: single drug addicted mom living in trailer, abusive stepdad, Appalachians are all white people, Appalachians are hillbillies.
I also found Demon’s trajectory unbelievable in terms of his path to drugs. It doesn’t line up with everything he has witnessed & experienced. The author comes across as an outsider to the subject.
I did like the Peggots, Aunt June, Mrs. Annie, and Tommy.
I enjoy complex characters that make sense, but the characters in this book don’t make sense.

TL;DR: ⭐️unreal to me that this won a Pulitzer Prize.

Content Warnings

unsweetener's review against another edition

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dark funny sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

I had no idea what I was getting into with this audiobook other than my library app was pushing it. As an elder Millennial who grew up in small town Appalachia, I might not have read it if I'd known, having a Tommy-like reaction most media featuring Appalachia (especially after suffering through Hillbilly Elegy). Fortunately author does the setting and the addiction theme justice.

This story veers dangerously close to misery porn, but Demon's perspective keeps things moving; when things are awful, he's focused on surviving to the next thing, which keeps the narrative from getting bogged down and me from getting too depressed to listen to it. There is a lot of abuse in this book, but not really sexual abuse (at least not directly), which was a relief to me.

The character of U-Haul was maybe the weakest part of the story for me; he was pretty one-dimensional

, but I can appreciate the need for a villain with a face post-Stoner

. There were also a few anachronisms, mostly with regard to TV references (the Kardashians were not a thing yet!), but that's a nit-pick.

The narration was excellent; one possible mispronunciation of peaked (as in sick looking, which I've always heard as pee-kud) caught my attention, but the accent and performance were masterful overall. Hearing my pronunciation of Mammaw is one of my favorite things.

This is the first book I've read by Kingsolver, and I haven't read David Copperfield, but this story reflects well on both of them. I keep thinking about the ways in which people can just disappear without community,

like Dori,

and how to rebuild the absolute wasteland that a place can become after a century of persistent and evolving exploitation, one family at a time.

Content Warnings

kelsimarirobb's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

tinjohh's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

dev921's review

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dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

navyredrose's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Audiobook narrator for this one was fantastic! Truly brought Demon to life!

Content Warnings

alxbryn's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was haunting and funny and upsetting and hopeful all at once. A really driven narrative that's so unsettling and addictive. I both loved and hated picking it up for fear of what was going happen next. This book has been living rent free in my head the entire time I've been reading it and I'm sure it'll stay for some time to come.

Content Warnings

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